The rise of mobile is continuing unabated with smartphone traffic and app installs up 7 and 8 percent respectively in the first month of 2017, according to a new report from Adobe.

The report looked at mobile traffic over the last year and how it has compared to previous years. What it found was the consumers are adopting mobile at a rapid rate, while other devices are falling by the wayside, confirming that marketers need to shift their focus to put mobile first.

” The most important trend we see is that consumers have little patience for mobile experiences that aren’t stellar, and they will find alternatives with alarming speed,” said Becky Tasker, managing analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. “Take Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for instance, which users have welcomed as a quick and efficient way to access content on mobile.

“Within a year, AMP now accounts for 7% of all the traffic that top U.S. publishers see across devices,” she said. “Consumer expectation on mobile is higher than ever before, and the declines we see in app installs and launches means that users are increasingly selective.

“Delivering on experience has become the primary battleground now. If brands don’t prioritize this, consumers won’t hesitate to find an alternative.” 

Global mobile report

Any retailer could tell you that mobile has quickly evolved to become a major force in modern digital marketing and commerce. The signs have been obvious for years.

But a recent report from Adobe took a deeper look at the data behind this and found that the surge could be even more rapid than previously thought.

Adobe’s Global Mobile report found that since 2014 mobile visits to Web sites have grown by 69 percent.

While this number is significant, what is more notable is how stagnant other devices have become.

In contrast with mobile’s explosive growth, desktop and tablet has plummeted by 23 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

These numbers represent an even more significant shift towards mobile than the common understanding of the digital industry.

But for mobile marketers and retailers, the report shows another area where mobile use has been declining.

Since 2014, app installs have decreased by 38 percent and app launches are down by 28 percent.

This means that consumers are slowly moving away from apps as their primary form of mobile engagement.

Adobe sees this drop off as a sign that mobile marketers and brands need to turn their focus from customer acquisition to retention.

“Many developing nations lack the infrastructure needed to enable desktop Web,” Ms. Tasker said. “As consumers seek out ways to access the Internet, they are leveraging smartphones as the entry point instead.

“This contributes to why we are seeing 34% higher smartphone share growth in developing nations compared to affluent ones,” she said. “For global brands looking to engage this influx of new users, it’s important to keep in mind some of the limitations.

“The lack of desktop infrastructure also means greater lag on the mobile experience. Users may experience longer load times, which should be accounted for when data is being analyzed and considered as the experience is developed.” 

Mobile first
While the general movement of consumers towards mobile should not be surprising, the speed and magnitude may be.

What this signals to brands and marketers is that mobile is now the dominant digital channel and they must adjust their strategies to follow suit.

The shift further towards mobile is consistent with previous research, such as a report from PayPal showing that almost 60 percent of media consumers watched TV or movies on their mobile devices (see story).

Similarly, social media advertising is up by 20 percent this year (see story), cementing mobile’s role in the new social world.

As for the move away from apps, messaging may provide a key new frontier for brands to reach the youngest consumers who favor platforms such as Viber and WhatsApp over traditional apps.

“With both app installs and launches down considerably in the United States, marketers need to invest more in an engagement strategy that goes beyond mobile-first, to mobile-always,” Ms. Tasker said. “We are well beyond tactics like optimizing for mobile, and brands have to re-imagine the experience with the form factor in mind.

“Intuition is key here, with the most valuable services being ones that arrive in moments of need, are simplified for small screens, and offer an integrated experience,” she said.

“Take a boutique fitness shop for instance. Giving members the ability to see the room layout and book spots, while serving alerts on new classes from their favorite instructor is a seemingly simple but critical way to delight users.”